Hike: Boquillas Canyon Trail (1.4 miles roundtrip)​This was a pretty easy hike for the whole family could do. Though not the official river crossing area, there were Mexican guys on the other side who would come across and offer to give you a ride in the boat and on a burro into the Mexican village. Along the hiking trails in the park, you may come across decorated walking sticks and other handmade wares illegally "for sale." Take a stick (or wire scupture) and leave $5 in coffee can. The guy below in the boat was coming across the river to check on his sales.​

This was one of those hike where the kids actually earned their candy/ice cream at the end. It was three miles across mountains and desert to get to a hot spring on the Rio Grande. And then we had to turn around and hike the 3 miles back. They were suprised to see a baby stroller at the hot springs, and even more surprised when the mom pushing the stroller said that she drove in and just walked a 1/4 mile to get to the springs. Booo haaaa haaa haaa!

We ditched our little dirt patch campground in Terlingua to explore the eastern side of the park. On our way over stopped at the Panther Junction Visitor Center (because we just can't drive by a visitor center without stopping to check out their gift shop and displays). We discovered my car that was being towed had a flat tire. Thank goodness for vistor center stops! Super driver/mechaninc/dad threw on the spare (with some help from a certain 3 year old) and I drove the car back to Terlingua where there was one mechanic shop who said he could look at my tire (luckily it was only 30 miles away and not 60 or 90 like the next closest towns).

Thank goodness for Terlingua Auto (aka Outpost Auto Service). While I chatted with the owner Archie about everything from water conservation, to Vietnam (you can check him out here on the National Geographic show Badlands, TX), the guys in the shop worked to patch up my tire. In the end, the tire couldn't be saved, but they were able to scrounge up a gently used Goodyear for me in the back. $35 and I was back on the road.

We did some morning homeschooling and then hopped in the car to check out Big Bend National Park. It's the park way down in Texas that you have to make a deliberate effort to get to...there's no way you'd accidentally end up here. We made a quick stop at the Castalon Vistor Center to find out the hiking. While I was talking with the ranger, Jack picked up a book in the gift shop and started reading. He'd pick up that same book at all the Big Bend visitor centers and almost finished it by the time we were done with Big Bend.

We plopped down in the dirt rv park for a few days. They had a trailer set up as a game room and had two cozy bathrooms. Nothing fancy, but it had plenty of nice hot water and a room you could steam up really good. This was the most expensive I've paid for laundry too ($2.50 a load to wash and $2.50 to dry). Water is pretty scarce in these parts since they've been having a drought too. A lot of locals are pretty smart and store up rainwater to use throughout the year.

Right down the street is the Terlingua Ghost Town. I wish we had spent a little more time exploring this bit, but we did have dinner at the old Starlight Theater. This was a fun find. The restaurant was in a former theater and had lots of history and character, with art for sale up on the walls and good food to boot. I had a club sandwich... with bacon of course and a fried egg in it. A great addition!

We headed down I-10 toward Las Cruces, the same route we took a month before on our way toward Carlsbad Caverns. This time we drove through El Paso (I tried not to look as we cars merged on and off the freeway around us...sometimes slowing down awkardly letting us in front of them or getting on really slowly as we try to slow down our 20,000lbs. The most interesting part of driving through El Paso was being able to see over the border into Juarez, Mexico. A city known for drug smuggling and violence (since Albuquerque we've been watching Breaking Bad), you can easily tell a difference from the US and this part of Mexico by looking through the chain link fence that separates El Paso from Juarez.

We debated if we should make the two hour drive out to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument or just skip it. After reading over tripadvisor's things to do in Silver City (the closest interestingish town), we decided to add another pin to the kids' growing junior ranger badge collection.

All the guide books (and online posts) said to take the longer scenic route north from Silver City on Hwy 15. It's a windy road and thankfully no one barfed. I drove. So it was a prettyish drive, but not too different from any other mountain road we've driven in California. So I would say do it if you have lots of time to kill and want to see a few trees, otherwise, the longer but less windy road (Hwy 35) will do the trick too.

We stopped at the visitor center to pick up junior ranger books and watched a video on the area. Then hopped back into our car and drove 5 minutes to the trail head for the walk to see the Gila Cliff Dwellings. There were volunteers and rangers at the trail head and up at the dwellings to help answer any questions.

For our second pass through the Deming, NM area, we picked a different state park to stay in this time. Last time down I-10 through New Mexico we stayed a little bit closer to the freeway at Rock Hound State Park (the state park that lets you collect rocks and take them home...in case you're looking to lug some extra weight home). Keeping with the rock theme, we took the last spot with hook up at City of Rocks. They had a bunch of awesome spots that backed up to the rocks with no hook ups, but not all were level enough for our 'bago and I find it's so handy to have water and electricity. No sewer or dump station here, so fellow rvers, be sure to get out of dodge before your cup runneth over.

This was my favorite rv in the campground. Check out the rooftop kayak with the cloud/sky paint.